Goethe`s Werther at the Crossroads: Love`s Agony in

Transcription

İslâm Araştırmaları Dergisi, 33 (2015): 73-106
Goethe’s Werther at the Crossroads:
Love’s Agony in Taŝawwuf and Metaphysica
Ömer Kemal Buhari*
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther1 (e Sufferings/
Sorrows of Young Werther) has aroused the close interest of global literary critics
and lay readership since 1774, the year of its publication. Being a prominent text
of world literature, this thought-provoking epistolary novel lends itself to intellectual theorizations on the metaphysics of love. e present paper provides a
cross-civilizational and interdisciplinary textual analysis of how the novel frames
the concept of love, or more precisely how it is undergirded by the conceptual
structure of love as illuminated by two paramount intellectual legacies, Islamic
mysticism (taŝawwuf or Sufism) and continental metaphysics.2 erewith, a gen*
A less developed version of this paper has been written in German language within
the advanced seminar (Hauptseminar) “Laughing and Crying (Lachen und Weinen)”
during my graduate studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of Ruprecht-Karls Heidelberg
University and submitted to Professor Peter König. I would like to present my special
thanks to my venerable mentor Professor İbrahim Kafi Dönmez, who generously offered his help during the publication of the paper; to Professor Mahmud Erol Kılıç who
encouraged me to publish it; and to my friend Ali Altaf Mian who revised the paper in
its different stages and shared his constructive criticism with me.
** PhD Candidate, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM - ISTAC) (omerkemal@
gmail.com).
1 The revised 1787 version of Werther (abbreviated as W throughout the text) has been
used for the present paper. See Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen
Werther (Leipzig: Weygand, 1787).
2 It is possible to argue that there are multiple approaches to love within the colorful
spectrum of Sufi thought, yet there is a clearly a unanimous (quasi-orthodox) understanding and praxis of love as “submission to Allāh” in Sufism, as we will try to establish
in the following sections. See also Louis Massignon, La passion d’al-Hosayn-Ibn-Mansour
Al-Hallaj: Martyr Mystique de l’Islam (Paris: Geuthner, 1922), II vols; Helmut Ritter, “Philologika VII”, Der Islam, 21/1 (1933): 84-109; Annemarie Schimmel, “Zur Geschichte der
mystischen Liebe im Islam”, Die Welt des Orients, 6 (1952): 495-99; Annemarie Schimmel,
The Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
1975), 130-48; Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of
Sufism (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 59-79. The same objection can also be made
for the concept of love within the heterogeneous heritage of metaphysical thought. This
© İSAM, İstanbul 2015
73
eral methodological clarification on the perspective of the paper and a concise
examination of Goethe’s relationship with Islam are also provided in the introductory section.
Key words: Goethe, Werther, Islam, Sufism, Continental metaphysics, love.
To compile a text within the constraints of contemporary academic norms
about a topic that is in part super-rational, even bordering on the metaphysics of love, is not only difficult, but also can prove to be provocative due to
an underlying problem of methodological méfiance; thus, there is a need for
this problem to be deconstructed beforehand. e prevailing secularity in
post-Enlightenment philosophical traditions has been a key component for
establishing contemporary epistemological frameworks. is secularity has
generated a particular understanding of rationality that does away with the
intrinsic metaphysical element by encapsulating the latter into compartments
of subjectivity and normativity, hence an inability to falsify and an inadequacy
of methodology. According to this exclusionist policy, which is criticized as
one of the most conspicuous obstacles to the act of thinking, and which is
epitomized by Heidegger in the concept of self-withdrawal (Sich-entziehen)3,
the phenomenon of love, for instance, must be explained exclusively by mundane and reified variables. e present paper, while not brushing aside the
mind-set of the contemporary spirit (Zeitgeist), takes the liberty of arguing
that the aforementioned variables lead to oversimplified formulas which fall
short of satisfactorily explicating the sufferings and suicide of Werther, and
proposes the employment of metaphysical elements from the Sufi heritage of
thought and continental philosophical tradition. In other words, the SchillerWeberian disenchanted (entzaubert) type of secular thinking about love, as
for instance represented in particular writings of Schopenhauer,4 Freud and
paper attempts to demonstrate that among selected authors of metaphysics, there exists
an interpretation of love equivalent to that of Sufism.
3 Martin Heidegger, Was heiβt Denken? (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1954), 5-6.
4 “For all love, however ethereally it may bear itself, is rooted in the sexual impulse alone,
nay, it absolutely is only a more definitely determined, specialized, and indeed in the
strictest sense individualized sexual impulse.” Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will
and Idea, trans. and ed. Richard B. Haldane and John Kemp (London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner & Co. Ltd., 1909), III, 339 — “Denn alle Verliebtheit, wie ätherisch sie sich auch
geberden mag, wurzelt allein im Geschlechtstriebe, ja, ist durchaus nur ein näher bestimmter, specialisirter, wohl gar im strengsten Sinn individualisierter Geschlechtstrieb.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ed. Julius Frauenstädt (Leipzig:
F.A. Brockhaus, 1888), III, 610. Obviously, Schopenhauer’s secular usage of the term
“metaphysics”, as outlined in Metaphysik der Geschlechtsliebe, in essence differs from the
Sufi approach.
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Buhari: Goethe’s Werther at the Crossroads
a number of their contemporaries, is challenged by the ascending ethos of
Sufism and metaphysics. e paper is written from the perspective that the
obviously transcendental texture of the work corrodes the limits of standard
positivistic thinking.5 To genuinely understand the sufferings of Werther, one
needs a fresh approach, a deep-rooted6 and not oversimplified perspective
that is accompanied by a profound sensation of Einfühlung.
e core of the paper, dedicated to explaining the suffering of Werther,
is based upon three sequential stages of love in Sufism: “separation”, “submission” and “annihilation”. e first section focuses on the reciprocity of
love and separation. It is argued that love is the agonizing aermath of the
traumatic “ur-separation” of humans from their Divine Origin. Deliberating
on the delicate nexus between the Creator and the created, the intermediary
section deconstructs Werther’s profane love as submission to God. e final
section points to the annihilating objective and the resulting afflicting nature
of love, which acquits Werther’s suicide. And the following introductory section contains relevant data on Goethe and his era, Werther’s background and
implications, and finally Goethe’s relationship with Islam.
Background, Reverberations and Initial Thoughts
Goethe’s Werther (1774; revised 1787) has been written as an epistolary
novel (Briefroman) consisting of two parts; the story centers on the protagonist’s (Werther) tragic love relationship to an affianced young woman
(Lotte). e story commences with a separation, as Werther relocates from
his hometown to another city, proceeds with his letters that contain the
sentimental accounts of his ambivalent and submissive passion to Lotte, and
ends with another separation of transcendental nature, i.e., Werther’s tragic
suicide. Classified by its subject, Werther is a standard love story in which
diverse phenomena, dimensions and stages related to love are reintroduced.
5 Goethe’s references to the contrast between “a scientific gardener” and “a feeling heart”
in the beginning letter of Werther (W, 8, am 4. Mai) demonstrates a more balanced
and rationalist attitude towards love and the absolute nature of love (W, 22, am 26.
Mai). In addition, his approach to reason and drunkenness (W, 86-87, am 12. August)
corroborates this position. See also Mahmud Erol Kılıç, Tasavvufa Giriş (Istanbul: Sufi,
2012), 16-19, 87-89.
6 As Schöffler, a trailblazing Werther-commentator, asserts, “There must be profound
reasons if a created [work] flashes across its time, if a work created in 1774 still lives
in all senses today.” — “Es müssen tiefe Gründe da sein, wenn ein Geschaffenes seine
Zeit durchzuckte, wenn ein 1774 Geschaffenes noch heute in aller Sinnen lebt.” Herbert
Schöffler, Deutscher Geist im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1967), 158.
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Classified by the epoch, the novel is one of the archetypical works of the late
18th century German literary movement, Sturm und Drang; in this movement the proto-romantic spirit is almost unanimously7 construed as being a
sentimental reaction by the German literati to the rigorous rationalist tone
of the Aulärung, which was dominant at that time. Young Goethe’s novel
granted him a considerable reputation throughout Europe within a relatively
short span of time. e resonances of his work were so compelling that
omas Mann, an eminent figure of the 20th century German literature and
a distinguished authority on Goethe’s work, regarded it as the most significant
accomplishment of Goethe’s entire life:
The little book “Werther” or in its full title “The Sufferings of Young
Werther: A Novel in Letters” was the greatest, most substantial and sensational success Goethe ever experienced as a writer. The lawyer from
Frankfurt was twenty-four years old when he wrote this concise work,
which is outwardly less extensive, as well as restricted by youth in terms
of its world and life view, but incredibly loaded with explosive emotion.8
In view of the emotional pervasiveness and acute insight into the human
soul in Goethe’s powerful narration, it is not unexpected that we discover
this tragedy as inspired by real events in the young author’s life. As reported
by a number of his critics and biographers, and even Goethe himself in
Dichtung und Wahrheit, Goethe’s personal experiences,9 such as Kestner’s
7 It is worth noting that there are dissenting voices with this mainstream interpretation.
See Bruce Duncan, “Sturm und Drang Passions and Eighteenth-Century Psychology”,
Literature of Sturm und Drang, ed. David Hill (New York. Camden House, 2003), 48.
8 My own translation of “Das Büchlein ‘Werther’ oder, mit seinem ganzen Titel ‘Die
Leiden des jungen Werther, ein Roman in Briefen’ war der grösste, ausgedehnteste,
sensationellste Erfolg, den Goethe, der Schriftsteller, je erlebt hat. Der Frankfurter
Jurist war ganze vierundzwanzig Jahre alt, als er dies äusserlich wenig umfangreiche,
auch als Welt- und Lebensbild jugendlich eingeschränkte, aber mit explosivem Gefühl
unglaublich geladene Werkchen schrieb.” Thomas Mann, “Goethe’s Werther”, Corona,
ed. Arno Schirokauer (Durham: Duke University Press, 1941), 186.
9 Goethe admits the relationship between Werther’s and his own sufferings in the following
remarks: “Rather it was owing to individual and immediate circumstances that touched
me to the quick, and gave me a great deal of trouble; which indeed brought me into the
frame of mind that produced ‘Werther’. I had lived, loved and suffered much! That was
it.” Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret, trans.
and ed. John Oxenford (London: G. Bell, 1883), 53 — “Es waren vielmehr individuelle,
naheliegende Verhâltnisse, die mir auf die Nägel brannten und mir zu schaffen machten,
und die mich in jenen Gemütszustand brachten, aus dem der ‘Werther’ hervorging. Ich
hatte gelebt, geliebt und sehr viel gelitten! Das war es.” Johann Peter Eckermann, Goethe’s
Gespräche mit J.P. Eckermann, ed. Franz Deibel (Leipzig: Insel, 1908), I, 101.
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letter acquainting him with details of Jerusalem’s suicide10, as well as his
own sufferings that stemmed from his unrequited love to Charlotte Buff,11
constituted the wellspring for Werther.12 us, the source of the graphic
narration becomes clear. Likewise, Goethe’s frank confessions exposing his
anxiety13 about his own work at the same time reveal his relationship with
Werther:
That […] is a creation which I, like the pelican, fed with the blood of my
own heart. […] Besides, as I have often said, I have only read the book
once since its appearance, and have taken good care not to read it again. It
is a mass of congreve-rockets. I am uncomfortable when I look at it; and
I dread lest I should once more experience the peculiar mental state from
which it was produced.14
10 Thorsten Valk, Melancholie im Werk Goethes (Tübingen: Max-Niemeyer, 2002), 62-63.
11 Cf. August Kestner, Goethe und Werther: Briefe Goethe’s (Stuttgart und Tübingen: Cotta,
1854).
12 Cf. Carl Maria Weber, “Zur Vorgeschichte von Goethes ‘Werther’”, Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft, 14 (1928): 82-92.
13 Goethe shared the following remarks about his psychological state concerning Werther: “That all the symptoms of this strange disease, as natural as it is unnatural, at one
time raged furiously through my innermost being, no one who reads Werther will
probably doubt. I know full well what resolutions and efforts it cost me in those days,
to escape from the waves of death; just as with difficulty I saved myself, to recover
painfully, from many a later shipwreck.” Carl Friedrich Zelter, Goethe’s Letters to Zelter,
With Extracts from those of Zelter to Goethe, trans. and ed. Arthur Duke Coleridge
(London: George Bell and Sons, 1887), 92 — “Dass alle Symptome dieser wunderlichen,
so natürlichen als unnatürlichen Krankheit auch einmal mein Innerstes durchrast
haben, daran lässt Werther wohl niemanden zweifeln. Ich weiß noch recht gut, was
es mich damals für Anstrengungen kostete, den Wellen des Todes zu entkommen, so
wie ich mich aus manchem spätern Schiffbruch auch mühsam rettete und mühselig
erholte.” Carl Friedrich Zelter, Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter in den Jahren
1796 bis 1832, Zweiter Theil, die Jahre 1812 bis 1818, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer (Berlin:
Duncker und Humblot, 1833), 44. A recent thought-provoking inquiry into Goethe’s
psycho-pathology has been carried out by Rainer M. Holm-Hadulla, Martin Roussel
and Frank-Hagen Hofmann, “Depression and Creativity: The Case of the German
Poet, Scientist and Statesman J.W. v. Goethe”, Journal of Affective Disorders, 127 (2010):
43-49; Rainer M. Holm-Hadulla, “Goethe’s Anxieties, Depressive Episodes and (Self-)
Therapeutic Strategies: A Contribution to Method Integration in Psychotherapy”,
Psychopathology, 46 (2012): 266-74.
14 Eckermann, Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret, 52 — “Das ist auch so
ein Geschöpf, [...] das ich gleich dem Pelikan mit dem Blute meines eigenen Herzens
gefüttert habe. [...] Ich habe es seit seinem Erscheinen nur einmal wieder gelesen und
mich gehütet, es abermals zu tun. Es sind lauter Brandraketen! - Es wird mir unheimlich
dabei und ich fürchte, den pathologischen Zustand wieder durchzuempfinden, aus dem
es hervorging”. Eckermann, Goethe’s Gespräche mit J.P. Eckermann, I, 99-100.
77
In addition to the literary works mentioned in Werther,15 it is clear that
forerunners to this novel were Richardson’s Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded
(1740) and Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady (1748), Rousseau’s Julie,
ou, la Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), Gellert’s Leben der Schwedischen Gräfin von
G (1748) and La Roche’s Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771). e
one brought most oen to the fore in Werther-research is Rousseau’s work.16
Moreover, Werther had a strong influence on its successors in literature. To
name a few examples, Karamsin’s Bednaia Liza (1792) is a Russian version
inspired by Werther, while Mann’s Lotte in Weimar (1939) is a response to the
work and Plenzdorf ’s Die neuen Leiden des jungen Werther (1972) is an East
German montage of Goethe’s novel.
e consequences of Werther’s publication were overwhelming. As stated
in an anonymous review dated 1775, “Werther has presumably aroused the
curiosity of Germany’s entire readership”.17 Swily traversing the German
borders, the tragedy achieved far more than this accurate but shortsighted
prediction. It triggered heated debates in the Anglophone world aer 1779,
the year it was first translated into English,18 as well as in other nations
(translated into French in 1775, and into Italian in 1781),19 conceivably serving its author’s aspiration of originating a Weltliteratur. Werther’s readers,
enthralled by Goethe’s powerful expression, launched a suicide trend, which
was referred to in sociological and psychological circles as the “Werther-effect”
and/or “Werther-fever”.20 Numerous “copycat suicides” terminated their lives
15 These include Klopstock, Emilia Galotti, Homer and Ossian. For the extent of their
interaction with Werther, see Mary A. Deguire, “Intertextuality in Goethe’s ‘Werther’”
(Ph.D. diss. University of Illinois, 2011).
16 Cf. Ellie Kennedy, “Rousseau and Werther, in Search of a Sympathetic Soul”, Lumen, 19
(2000): 109-19; Astrida Orle Tantillo, “A New Reading of Werther as Goethe’s Critique
of Rousseau”, Orbis Litterarum, 56/6 (2003): 443-65.
17 Valk, Melancholie im Werk Goethes, 57.
18 Orie W. Long, “English Translations of Goethe’s Werther”, The Journal of English and
Germanic Philology, 14/2 (1915): 169-203.
19 Cf. Johann Wilhelm Appell, Werther und seine Zeit. Zur Goethe-Literatur, 3rd ed. (Oldenburg: Schulzesche Hof-Buchhandlung und Hof-Buchdruckerei, 1882), 8-50.
20 The pioneering study in social sciences about this phenomenon was written by David P.
Phillips, “The Influence of Suggestion on Suicide: Substantive and Theoretical Implications of the Werther Effect”, American Sociological Review, 39/3 (1974): 340-54. For a more
recent and comparative analysis of the concept, see Walther Ziegler and Ulrich Hegerl,
“Der Werther-Effekt: Bedeutung, Mechanismen, Konsequenzen“, Nervenarzt, 73 (2002):
41-49. For a study concentrating on the nexus between media and violence with the
example of Werther, see Martin Andree, Wenn Texte töten: Über Werther, Medienwirkung
und Mediengewalt (München: Wilhelm Fink, 2006); Finally, for a counter-voice which
argues that there was no such suicidal epidemic at all, see Jan Thorson and Per-Arne
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in a similar way to Werther, which alerted their societies and led to the banning of the novel in Leipzig, Copenhagen and Milan. As a consequence, the
book not only received approbatory and sympathetic reviews, but also created vociferous and contemptuous reactions. e central points of criticism,
mostly issued by conservative circles, declared that it was the “justification/
glorification of suicide” as well as a “violation of Christianity and morality.”21
Apart from religious presuppositions, as might be expected, an extensive
range of interpretations devoted to Goethe’s Werther and the reasons for his
sufferings has emerged.22 e majority comes from psychological and psychiatric etiologists who underline Werther’s amour propre, his labile character
and poor skills of adaptability.23 ey usually predicate their opinions on the
diagnosis of Werther as a case history (historia morbi), which, according to Lavater, was made by Goethe himself.24 However, Goethe himself also indicated
the timelessness of Werther,25 ruling out temporally limited interpretations.26
Yet, other noteworthy critics have focused on Werther’s political aspects, based
on their theories of social history, mostly within a Marxist and Le Hegelian
paradigm.27 Although there might be a share of truth in the psychoanalytical
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Öberg, “Was There a Suicide Epidemic after Goethe’s Werther?”, Archives of Suicide
Research, 7/1 (2003): 69-72.
Cf. Georg Jäger, “Die Leiden des alten und neuen Werther”, Literatur: Kommentare
(München, Wien: Carl Hanser, 1984), XXI, 129-46; and Bruce Duncan, Goethe’s Werther
and the Critics (New York: Camden House, 2005), 10-23. One can observe a similarity
between these and the recurrent criticism of Sufi expressions by jurisprudential circles
in Islam, inasmuch as they both objectify the ubiquitous tension between esotericists
and literalists, in other words between ahl al-bāšin (people of the inward) and ahl alžāhir (people of the outward), as we will discuss in the following sections.
For a detailed list of alleged reasons and their authors, see Günther Sasse, “Woran
leidet Werther? Zum Zwiespalt zwischen idealistischer Schwärmerei und sinnlichem
Begehren”, Goethe-Jahrbuch, 116 (1999): 246; and for a more extensive analysis, see
Duncan, Goethe’s Werther and the Critics.
Jäger, “Die Leiden des alten und neuen Werther”, XXI, 12-107; Duncan, Goethe’s Werther
and the Critics, 61-65.
Johann Kaspar Lavater, Vermischte Schriften (Winterthur: Heinrich Steiner und Comp.,
1781), II, 128.
Robert Ellis Dye, “Man and God in Goethe’s ‘Werther’”, Symposium 29 (1975): 318.
A general aside about Goethe’s remarks on Werther: Although these seem to ease the
problems of understanding his work correctly, it becomes obvious, again from these
remarks, that Goethe himself has not overcome the implications of the phenomenal
love incarnated in Werther. He rather adopted an avoidant attitude towards his Frankenstein -angst; indeed this seems to be the most adequate word to describe his later
dissociation. Therefore, the horizon is not limited to the author’s remarks, but rather
an attempt to theorize further about the Wertherian love is made in order to decode it
more accurately.
An example of these would be the reading of the novel as a critique of nobility based
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and political approaches, one can discern in these frames of reference the
vestiges of a criticized shallow way of thinking which oversimplifies even the
purely transcendental passages in which Werther experiences a spiritual state
in the Divine Presence.28 Hence, it would be distortive reductionism to read
Werther merely from a psychiatric or political aspect.
e popularity of Goethe’s oeuvre led to a large number of interpretations of Werther being made; as a result, it is now practically impossible to
make an overall view. An inquiry on the keyword “Werther” returns more
than five thousand results in Weimarer Goethe-Bibliographie Online, the most
comprehensive Goethe bibliography.29 Having said that, and while it is true
that commentaries which concentrate on the religio-mystical elements in
Goethe’s works are in abundance, the reading of Werther’s sufferings in light
of Sufi love,30 as done here, is a novel attempt. e religio-mystical elements
of Werther, based on the Old and New Testaments, as well as pantheism,
freemasonry and mythology, have been implemented by scholars. However,
generally speaking, while Goethe’s Faust and West-östlicher Divan have been
studied in terms of their contextual relationship with Sufism/Islam, Werther
upon the passages in which Werther juxtaposes the noblemen with the ordinary people
around him. See also Georg Lukács, Goethe und seine Zeit (Bern: Francke, 1947); Klaus
Scherpe, Werther und Wertherwirkung: Zum Syndrom der bürgerlichen Gesellschaftsordnung im 18. Jh. (Bad Homburg: Gehlen, 1970). For an overview, see Martin Swales, The
Sorrows of Young Werther (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 49-58.
28 For instance, Adams claims: “Werther cries out for interpretation as a narcissist, as
in the letter of 10 May 1771 when he identifies himself with ‘the All-loving One who,
floating in eternal bliss, carries and sustains us.’” Jeffrey Adams, “Narcissism and Object
Relations in Goethe’s Creative Imagination”, Mimetic Desire: Essays on Narcissism in
German Literature from Romanticism to Post Modernism, ed. Jeffrey Adams and Eric
Williams (Columbia: Camden House, 1995), 65-85.
29 Weimarer Goethe-Bibliographie online (WGB) contains works on Goethe’s biography,
works and effects: Weimarer Goethe-Bibliographie online. Available from:
http://opac.ub.uni-weimar.de/LNG=DU/DB=4.1/. Accessed 10 October 2014. For other
Goethe bibliographies, see Hans Pyritz, Goethe-Bibliographie (Heidelberg: Winter, 1965);
Helmut G. Hermann, Goethe-Bibliographie: Literatur zum dichterischen Werk (Stuttgart:
Reclam, 1991); Siegfried Seifert, Goethe Bibliographie 1950-1990 (München: K.G.Saur,
2000), 3 vols.
30 We are aware of the fact that in nature there is no such thing as “Sufi love”, i.e., this
paper does not defend a sterilized and exclusive type of love, which is only known to
and experienced by Sufis. Instead, an attempt has been made to find common grounds
in various schools of thought. Therefore, what we mean by the term “Sufi love” is the
approach of Sufi poets and authors to love, one that still maintains its universal character.
On the other hand, since Sufis have given a core importance to love, both in theoretical
and practical terms, they have supposedly produced more crystallized ideas about it
throughout the history of ideas, as for instance epitomized in Rūmī’s Mathnawi.
80
has been a much neglected work, regardless of the large number of transcendental references that appear to coincide with Sufi literature about love.
Trunz, the editor of Goethe’s Hamburger Ausgabe, postulates that Werther
has been “outlandish (fremdartig) from its choice of words to the ideas represented in it.”31 Indeed, for Christian-Occidental cultural circles there is an
exotic and alien element in Werther, and it is this that deflects their vision
about the novel. erefore, it is not surprising to see early commentators of
Werther making an emphasis on the deistic, pantheistic32 or even rationalist and impersonalized, thus that is, secular and non-Christian notions, of
God; these notions allegedly were inherited from the earlier works of Kant,
Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, Bruno, Spinoza and Schleiermacher.33 us, in the
novel there is a secular and dissident substance, based first and foremost
on Werther’s profane love34 to Lotte35, but also on “the [general] accusatory
tendency” in the book which is contextualized upon Leibniz’ theodicy.36 In
fact, as Schaeder indicates the esoteric nature of the novel with an emphasis on the Immanence of God, it is, he states, “not the Idea of God, but the
Presence of God inside human beings [that] is the highest value in Goethe’s
novel.”37 In Werther one finds an austere life, a piety justified by sacrilegious
love, irrespective of whom he loved outwardly; rather this is a love liberated from its initial object, combined with his rebellious expressions against
orthodoxy,38 a recurrent topic of tension between Sufis and outwardly circles
in Islam. Goethe was not unfamiliar to this schism as he regarded Hāfez as
a spiritual relative who, despite his complete submission, occasionally was
31 Dye, “Man and God in Goethe’s ‘Werther’”, 314.
32 “radikaler Gefühlspantheismus” (radical emotional pantheism), Karl Grün, Ueber Goethe
vom menschlichen Standpunkte (Darmstadt: Carl Wilhelm Leske, 1846), 93. For an early
philosophical elaboration of the relationship between Goethe’s worldview and nature,
see Rudolf Steiner, Goethes Weltanschauung (Weimar: Emil Felber, 1897).
33 Schöffler, Deutscher Geist im 18. Jahrhundert, 170, 178, 181.
34 —which, in fact, is not that profane, as we will see in the second section on “love as
submission”.
35 Hermann Zabel, “Goethe’s “’Werther’: eine weltliche Passionsgeschichte?“, Zeitschrift
für Religions- Und Geistesgeschichte, 24/1 (1972): 60-61.
36 Dye, “Man and God in Goethe’s ‘Werther’”, 316.
37 “Nicht die Gottesidee, aber die Gegenwart Gottes im Inneren des Menschen ist der
höchste Wert in Goethes Roman” (as cited in Zabel, “Goethe’s “Werther” – eine weltliche
Passionsgeschichte?“ 58).
38 The best example for these can be found in the final sentence of the book, which can
also be construed as Goethe’s prediction of the clerical reaction to Werther: “No priest
attended.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, trans. and ed.
R. Dillon Boylan (Boston: Niccolls & Company, 1902), 135 — “Kein Geistlicher hat ihn
begleitet.” (W, 252).
81
cynical about the clerics.39 From this angle, Goethe and Werther carry the
hallmarks of Sufi iconoclasts, who, by attacking fixed, but oen unquestioned
and imitated, hence unjustified and to-be-internalized beliefs, rituals, figures,
institutions and practices (briefly the “Establishment” in Schimmel’s words),
aim to revive the authentic faith (īmān al-taģqīqī). e famous Gretchenfrage
in Faust reveals Goethe’s similar predilection towards religion.40
While not necessarily gravitating towards an Islamic-exclusive judgment
about Werther, there are some historical facts to bear in mind: (1) Goethe’s
well-documented personal affinity for Islam:41 Luserke states that Goethe
started to study the Holy Qur’an towards the end of 1771, roughly three years
before the publication of Werther.42 Goethe read Megerlin’s translation of the
Holy Qur’an;43 this is a work which gives a rather malevolent anti-Islamic
portrayal. is is clear from the introduction about Prophet Muhammad,
who is described as Mahvmet: der Falsche Prophet. Goethe calls this work a
“miserable production”,44 and inferring from the bitter tone in his criticism,
39 Elisabeth Mommsen, Goethe und der Islam (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 2001), 129.
40 “Nenns Glück! Herz! Liebe! Gott! / Ich habe keinen Namen / Dafür! Gefühl ist alles /
Name ist Schall und Rauch / Umnebelnd Himmelsglut.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Goethes Werke: Faust (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1887), XIV, 174.
41 Cf. Katharina Mommsen, “Goethe’s Relationship to Islam”, The Muslim, 4/3 (1967): 12-18;
Said H. Abdel-Rahim, Goethe und der Islam (Augsburg: Blasaditch, 1969); Bayram Yılmaz,
Goethe ve İslâmiyet (Konya: Esra, 1991); Katharina Mommsen, Goethe und die arabische
Welt (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1988), 264-477; Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide
to Sufism (Boston&London: Shambhala, 1997), 147; Katharina Mommsen, “Goethes
Morgenlandfahrten“, Goethe-Jahrbuch, 116 (1999): 281-90; Fred Dallmayr, “Doğu-Batı
Divanı: Goethe ve Hâfız Diyaloğu”, Divan, 9/2 (2000): 113-31. Mommsen, Goethe und
der Islam, 20-25; Bayram Yılmaz, Goethe ve Tasavvuf: Dava Safahatim (Istanbul: NKM,
2006), 4-77; Nasr, The Garden of Truth, 156. For a critical analysis of early works, see
Ian Almond, The History of Islam in German Thought: From Leibniz to Nietzsche (New
York and London: Routledge, 2010), 71-89; Katharina Mommsen, Orient und Okzident
sind nicht mehr zu trennen: Goethe und die Weltkulturen (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2012),
87-104; Finally, Özkan posits that Goethe had turned towards the Islamic world with
all his inquisitiveness, yet his sources, confined by translations of Orientalists, could
not provide him sufficient materials. See Senail Özkan, Mevlâna ve Goethe (Istanbul:
Ötüken, 2006), 28.
42 Matthias Luserke, Der junge Goethe: “Ich weis warum ich Narr soviel schreibe” (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1999), 96.
43 Megerlin’s translation is known to be the first German translation of the Holy Qur’an
made directly from the original Arabic. David Friedrich Megerlin, Die türkische Bibel
oder des Koran allererste teutsche Übersetzung aus der Arabischen Urschrift (Frankfurt
am Main: Garbe, 1772).
44 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Megerlins Koran“, Frankfurter gelehrte Anzeigen vom
Jahr 1772. Zweite Hälfte (Heilbronn: Gebr. Henninger, 1772), 673. In this succinct review,
Goethe not only criticizes “the misery” of Megerlin’s translation, but also expresses his
wish to see the Qur’an translated into his native language by a compatriot who would
82
this demonstrates the competence and depths of his knowledge of Islam. It
is further stated that Goethe also read Marracio’s Latin-Arabic edition and
two more translations of the Qur’an (1698),45 as well as Gagnier’s La vie de
Mahomet (1732) and Turpin’s Histoire de la vie de Mahomet (1773) to increase
his knowledge about Islam. (2) Goethe’s admiration of Prophet Muhammad
as “the best among the created”:46 Luserke also states that Goethe, under the
influence of Herder, desired to correct the negative image of Prophet Muhammad, which had been created by Voltaire’s play Mahomet (1741). e Prophet
was primarily a “genius” for the leading figure of Sturm und Drang.47 Two
years prior to the publication of Werther, Goethe wrote a eulogy (MahometsGesang) in memoriam; certain verses of it reveal an astonishing similitude
to the former.48 Goethe’s broader project, Mahomet-Drama, was never completed, and remained only as a few pages. Yet, it is useful for those researching
Werther to realise that there is a relationship between the beginning of the
drama and the odes in Klopstock. (3) Goethe’s employment of Sufi symbolism
in his later work: In his West-östlicher Divan, the poet authoritatively employs
symbols and leitmotivs peculiar to the Sufi thesaurus,49 thus establishing his
deep rapport with Sufism. Furthermore, the usage of the lyrical I from the
mouth of Muslim characters in some of verses have led the critics to comment
on Goethe’s personal identification with Islam.50 However, such approaches
read it with a poetic and prophetic sentiment —his wish was fulfilled approximately half
a century later with Rückert’s (1834) translations of Qur’anic sūras, who unfortunately
was unable to translate the whole Qur’an.
45 Taha Badri, “Zum Bild des Propheten Mohammed in Goethes Gedicht ‘Mahomets
Gesang’: Goethes Einstellung zum Propheten Mohammed u. zum Islam aus der Sicht e.
arab. Germanisten”, Kairoer germanistische Studien: Jahrbuch für Sprach-, Literatur- und
Übersetzungswissenschaft; Jahrbuch für Germanistik, 14 (2004): 65-90. Ludovico Marracio,
Alcorani textus universus arabicus, cum versione latina, appositis unicuique capiti notis
atque refutatione (Patavii, 1698). In addition to these two, Goethe is also reported to
have read Sales’ English translation and Ruyer’s French translation of the Qur’an.
46 “Oberhaupt der Geschöpfe”
47 Cf. D. Gustav Pfannmüller, Handbuch der Islam-Literatur (Berlin und Leipzig: Walter
de Gruyter & Co., 1923), 174.
48 “[…] Bruder! / Bruder, nimm die Brüder mit / Mit zu deinem alten Vater / Zu dem
ew’gen Ocean / Der mit ausgespannten Armen / Unser wartet / Die sich ach! vergebens
öffnen / Seine Sehnenden zu fassen […]” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethes Schriften, ed. Georg Joachim Göschen (Leipzig: G.J. Göschen, 1789), VIII, 183-86. It is hard to
distinguish these ebullient verses of “Mahomets-Gesang” from Werther’s invocations.
49 One of the most obvious examples of this employment can be observed in the Goethean
usage of well-known Sufi symbols “light” and “butterfly” in his poem “selige Sehnsucht”.
See Mommsen, Goethe und der Islam, 207-23; and Annemarie Schimmel, Sufismus: Eine
Einführung in die islamische Mystik (München: Beck, 2003), 33.
50 Cf. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, West-östlicher Divan: Goethes sämtliche Werke, ed.
Franz Schultz (Berlin: Th. Knaur, 1908), 43, 54, 73.
83
are not in keeping with Goethe’s personal belief, as the Muslim characters
in his book are brought into speech in themselves. However, the dividing
line between Goethe and his lyrical I are not to make into an absolute, as
some could and have deduced from his inexplicit expressions in some of his
private letters that Goethe was a Muslim.51 Again, Mommsen clarifies that
Goethe began to write West-östlicher Divan shortly aer his performance of
Islamic prayer with Bashkir troops in a local Protestant high school.52 (4)
A fatwa issued stating that Goethe was a Muslim: this was issued by Sheikh
‘Abdalqādir Al-Murābit (also known as Ian Dallas, the well-known Sufi author
of Book of Strangers) in Germany.53 Although numerous Muslims throughout
the world were pleased by this, as a globally celebrated mind and a man of
letters, the crème de la crème, had overnight become their coreligionist, Mommsen deems this fatwa as being unjustified; she argues against it by putting
forward Goethe’s criticism of Islam and the role of women and prohibition
of wine in the religion.54 Almond also emphasizes Goethe’s self-attribution
as a Pseudo-Mohammedan (Aermahometaner).55
While it remains a challenge to arrive at a clear conclusion on this matter,
there are no serious obstacles to evaluating Goethe’s positive attitude towards
Islam within the broader cadre of the so-called free-thinkers (Freigeister) of
the time, such as Reimarus, Lessing, Herder and Carlyle. is brings us to
a particular teleological hypothesis of a rather theo-political nature about
Goethe’s attitude towards Islam. It is a well-documented historical fact that
Goethe was a Freemason. 56 e Masonic elements and ideas in his novels
and poems are also familiar to literary researchers.57 On the other hand,
as elaborated by unbiased scholars, the Masonic ambition of uniting the
51 Carl Friedrich Zelter, Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter in den Jahren 1796 bis 1832,
151; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Propyläen Ausgabe von Goethes sämtlichen Werken,
ed. C. Noch (Berlin: Im Propyläen Verlag, 1909), XXXII, 259; Thomas Carlyle, Correspondence between Goethe and Carlyle, ed. Charles Eliot Norton (London: Macmillan
and Co., 1887), 18.
52 Mommsen, “Goethes Morgenlandfahrten”, 284-85.
53 Sheikh ‘Abdalqādir Al-Murābit, “Was Goethe a Muslim?” Islamische Zeitung, 19 December
1995.
54 “Goethes tiefe Neigung zum Islam”: “...als dass ich mich auch hier im Islam zu halten
suche”, Islamische Zeitung, 17 March 2000. Available from:
http://www.islamische-zeitung.de/index.cgi?id=8463. Accessed 24 October 2014.
55 Almond, The History of Islam in German Thought, 73.
56 Helmut Reinalter, Die Freimaurer (München: Beck, 2000), 102-3.
57 Robert A. Gilbert, “Freemasonry and Literature”, Handbook of Freemasonry, ed. Henrik
Bogdan and Jan A.M. Snoek (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014), 529.
84
humanity as world citizens (Weltbürger) is not a conspiracy theory.58 During
a 2007 lecture at the University of TU Clausthal, Mommsen affirmed that, unlike Kipling and Huntington in more recent times, Goethe thought in global
dimensions; his sense of responsibility led him to take the main role of a
negotiator between the Orient and the Occident.59 us, Goethe’s openness
to Islam and his efforts to build a bridge between the East and the West can
also be contextualized within a broader political framework.60 One can assume that Goethe and other Masonic figures of Aulärung discovered some
potential in Islam that was juxtaposed to the existing hostile, exclusionist
and otherizing Christian anti-Islamic bias prevalent in their era. e Islamic
creed of monotheism in its pure, uncorrupted and universally embracing
form, along with its unifying rhetoric could have presented a resemblance
to the idea of religious unity in their minds (e.g., the Islamic concept of ahl
al-kitāb/people of the book and Lessing’s ring parable61). Goethe’s interest in
the cultures of India, China, Japan and Korea62, and his well-known ambition
to create a supranational Weltliteratur63 give credence to this hypothesis. Yet
58 “Schließlich setzen sich die Logen nicht nur über die ständische und konfessionelle,
sondern auch über die einzelstaatliche Zugehörigkeit hinweg. “Der Bruder war innerhalb
der Logen kein Untertan der Staatsgewalt mehr, sondern Mensch unter Menschen.“
Folglich sahen sich die Freimaurer nicht nur als Untertan oder Staatsbürger, sondern als Weltbürger.” Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, Die Politik der Geselligkeit (Göttingen:
Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 42-43. “This defense intended for a Continental and
largely Catholic audience, like so many other pieces of masonic literature, calls forth a
single creed, one that could be embraced by a variety of Christians, as well as by Mohammedans and Jews. As another tract put it, only within freemasonry can that creed
be practiced; this society alone “redounds to the honour of the great parent of nature,
and architect of the universe . . . worthy . . . of man whose greatest happiness is society,
whose supreme dignity is humanity [...]” “This universalism makes sense not only as
propaganda but also as a true reflection of early masonic history.” Margaret C. Jacob,
Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (New
York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 66. “His listener reminds him, however,
that human beings are hopelessly divided, into many states and religions. Predictably
the masonic voice has the cure: Freemasonry will unite humankind, its universalism
offers the first step toward unity [...]” “The recognition that ‘all the nations will never
be a single family’ did not stop the masonic desire to create just that: Only the spirit of
masonry operates [to produce] this astonishing revolution.” Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, 150.
59 Katharina Mommsen, “Gottes ist der Orient, Gottes ist der Okzident, Goethes Blick
auf die Islamische Welt” [Video file, 9 February 2007]. Available from: http://video.tuclausthal.de/film/36.html. Accessed 24 October 2014.
60 Giles Morgan, Freemasonry (Sparkford: J.H. Haynes & Co., 2008), 22.
61 Zahim Mohammed Muslim, “Lessing und der Islam: Eine Studie zu Lessings Auseinandersetzung mit dem Islam” (Ph.D. diss., Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2010), 190-98.
62 Mommsen, “Goethes Morgenlandfahrten”, 283-84.
63 Cf. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Schriften zur Kunst, Schriften zur Literatur, Maximen
85
it would be an injustice to the poet’s genius to demarcate his personal affinity
for Islam with political borders; rather, his approach to Islam seems to have
had a deeply sentimental character.
Regardless of what Goethe’s reasons may have been for developing a
sympathetic relationship with Islam, the historical facts above reveal a resemblance of a deeper metaphysical substance between Goethean and Sufi
loves; this, when considered with Goethe’s personal understanding of religion
and that of homo islamicus below, have been revealed by Mommsen’s wellestablished studies. Indeed, Goethe’s being comfortable with Islam and his
employment of Sufi themes in his works are mirrored in the fact that Sufi
readers are at home with Goethe’s work. us, it would not be completely
implausible to regard Wertherian “amor” as a recondite manifestation of
Sufi love. Since there is a remarkable symmetry and harmony between the
multiple manifestations of love in Werther, Goethe’s additional works and Sufi
thought and praxis, the Sufi interpretation of Werther should not be omitted.
Not because Goethe would have tailored Werther with this specific intention,
as can be observed in West-östlicher Divan, but rather by virtue of the poet’s
harmonious spiritual chemistry with the Sufi form of existence, which, in
spiritual terms, precedes his political and social predispositions. By this not
only the deeper influence of Islamic sources on Goethe’s spirit are being
referred to,64 but also the harmony between non-Islamic and Sufi reasonings on love, which is unambiguous within the universality of love. Hence, it
appears to be more plausible to conclude that Werther should be read within a
sacred conception of love, the framework of which can be restructured based
on the Sufi notion of love; however, this is also at home with metaphysics, as
will be illustrated using the ideas of Plato, Spinoza and Hegel.
und Reflexionen. Goethes Werke, ed. Erich Trunz (München: Beck, 1982), XII, 361-64.
64 For a concise bibliography of Goethe’s oriental sources, see M. Ikram Chaghatai, Iqbal
and Goethe (Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan, 2000), 551-54.
86
e Genesis of Love: Separation
Book of books most wonderful
Is surely the book of Love;
Heedfully I have read it through;
Of joys some scanty leaves,
Whole sheets writ o’er with pain;
Separation forms a section,
Reunion a little chapter,
And that a fragment. Troubles run to volumes,
Drawn out with due elucidations,
Endless and measureless.
(Goethe, “Reading-Book”)65
Wunderlichstes Buch der Bücher
Ist das Buch der Liebe;
Aufmerksam hab ich’s gelesen:
Wenig Blätter Freuden,
Ganze Hee Leiden;
Einen Abschnitt macht die Trennung.
Wiedersehn! ein klein Kapitel,
Fragmentarisch. Bände Kummers
Mit Erklärungen verlängert,
Endlos, ohne Maß.
(Goethe, “Lesebuch”)66
Goethe, in his rather pessimistic poem “Lesebuch” above, decries in a realistic tone that volumes of love’s miraculous book consist of endless worries. A
few pages deliver joy to the heart, distinguishes the poet, but entire chapters
have been written in agony, as we see in Werther. e emerging pessimistic
enigma needs an adequate solution: how can this immeasurable pain stem
from a blissful affection like love? An attempt to solve this problem can be
accomplished by departing from an ontological point of view as outlined by
Goethe in his “Wiederfinden”:
65 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, West-Eastern Divan, trans. and ed. Edward Dowden
(London and Toronto: J.M.Dent & Sons, 1914), 35.
66 Goethe, West-östlicher Divan, 19.
87
When buried deep the whole world lay
In God’s eternal breast, elate
He summoned forth the primal day,
Urged by the rapture to create.
He spake the fiat
“Let there be!”
And with a dolorous “Alas!”
Forth into actuality
Outbrake the mighty, labouring mass! […]
And things had power to love anew
Which each from each had fallen away.
(Goethe, “Reunion”)67
Als die Welt im tiefsten Grunde
Lag an Gottes ewger Brust
Ordnet’ er die erste Stunde
Mit erhabner Schöpfungslust.
Und er sprach das Wort:
“Es werde!”
Da erklang ein schmerzlich Ach!
Als das All mit Machtgebärde
In die Wirklichkeiten brach! […]
Und nun konnte wieder lieben,
Was erst auseinanderfiel.
(Goethe, “Wiederfinden”)68
In his comparative analysis of Rūmī and Goethe, Özkan introduces an
enlightening exegesis of “Wiederfinden”s transcendental verses.69 According
to the Goethean account of genesis, all existence has been blessed with a
tranquil unity with God before creation. In their pre-temporal non-being,
God’s eternal breast provided a Divine Nest for human beings, unencumbered by the sorrows or anxieties of independent existence. Yet, following
their creation with the Divine Imperative “Es werde!”70 they were detached
67 Goethe, West-Eastern Divan, 134.
69 Özkan, Mevlâna ve Goethe, 96-97.
70 The imperative of “yehi!/fiat!” in the Biblical, and “kun!” in the Qur’anic terminologies.
88
from their erstwhile absoluteness, their earthly being became extracted from
the homeland, which at the same time instigated their suffering. is urseparation is what simultaneously excruciates human beings and what creates
love between the once together, but now separated subjects. Consequently,
humans are exiles who existentially yearn for a homecoming while love is
their painful hope from the prison of life; in Werther’s words a “Kerker” (W,
19, am 22. May).71
As soon as one reaches the consciousness of the self ’s evanescence and
strangeness on Earth, consequently conceding to be a gharīb,72 or simply
a wanderer, as Goethe and Werther do,73 one starts to sense a separation
anxiety and a homesickness.74 Goethe alludes to the suffering caused by this
separation as a “schmerzlich Ach”, which immediately succeeds the verse of
creation. His exclamation presumably refers to the unbearable heaviness of
being, caused by the perpetual human quest of the lost state of unity, which
can also be noticed in the aforementioned angry utterance of Werther. It is in
fact this transcendental urge, experienced by Werther in its spatio-temporal
manifestation of longing for Lotte that causes an unbearable pain;75 this is,
as claimed by Werther’s author, at home with the sensitive receptiveness of
poets.76 To justify Goethe, Rūmī, whose poetry focuses on longing and love
as its central concepts, postulates that the longing of the soul is nothing but
the lover’s desire of unity with the Beloved. Probably the most crystallized
71 Cf. “Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The
world is a prison-house for a believer and Paradise for a non-believer.” Ŝaģīģ Muslim,
Book 42, Number 7058.
72 The Sufi term for “stranger”.
73 “Wanderer” is Goethe’s epithet. “Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the
world. But what else are you!“ Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 79, July 16 — “Ja,
wohl bin ich nur ein Wandrer, ein Waller auf der Erde! Seid ihr denn mehr?” (W, 146,
am 16. Julius). The later affixation of this passage, which is missing in the first 1774
edition of Werther, presumptively discloses Goethe’s particular emphasis onto it.
74 “Heimweh”, according to Novalis, is nothing but the sheer definition of philosophy.
Novalis, Schriften, ed. Jacob Minor (Jena: Diederichs, 1923), 179. This thought reveals a
parallelism between the “love of wisdom” and love per se, both deprived of and searching
for their homes.
75 “I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which
created worlds around me—it is no more.” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 90,
November 3 — “Ich leide viel, denn ich habe verloren, was meines Lebens einzige Wonne
war, die heilige belebende Kraft, mit der ich Welten um mich schuf; sie ist dahin!“ (W,
169, am 3. November)
76 “[N]one are distressed like thee! Then I read a passage in an ancient poet, and I seem
to understand my own heart.” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 94, November
26 — “[S]o ist noch keiner gequält worden; dann lese ich einen Dichter der Vorzeit,
und es ist mir, als säh’ ich in mein eignes Herz.” (W, 176, am 26. November)
89
version of this idea in poetry can be found in the exordial eighteen verses of
Rūmī’s Mathnawi, one of the most radical insights into the essence of love.
Now listen to this reed-flute’s deep lament
About the heartache being apart has meant:
‘Since from the reed-bed they uprooted me
My song’s expressed each human’s agony
[…] When kept from their true origin, all yearn
For union on the day they can return.
[…] is reed relates a tortuous path ahead,
Recalls the love with which Majnun’s heart bled77
‫ﯿ ﺪ‬
‫ﯿ ﺪ‬
‫ ﻮن ﺣ ﮑﺎ‬،‫ﻮ از ﯽ‬
‫از ﺪا ﯽ ﺷ ﮑﺎ‬
ُ
‫ا ﺮ ﺪه ا ﺪ‬
‫ﺘﺎن‬
‫از ﺮم د و زن ﺪه ا ﺪ‬
‫ﯽ ﻮ دور ﻣﺎ ﺪ از ا ﻞ ﻮ ﺶ‬
[...]
‫ﺑﺎز ﻮ ﺪ روزﮔﺎر و ﻞ ﻮ ﺶ‬
‫راه ﻮن ﯽ ﺪ‬
‫[ ﯽ ﺪ‬...]
‫ﮫﺎی ﻖ ﻮن ﯽ ﺪ‬
78
The Quintessence of Love: Submission
Although nearly everyone is acquainted to some extent with the phenomenon denoted by the word “love”, as asserted by Ernst, “love” is hard to classify.79 roughout the history of thought, philosophers, poets, psychologists,
77 Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, The Masnavi: Book One, trans. and ed. J. Mojaddedi
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4-5 (couplets 1-2, 4, 13).
78 Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, Mathnawi Ma’nawī (Tehran: Sepās, 2011), 39.
79 Carl W. Ernst, “The Stages of Love in Early Persian Sufism, from Rābi‘a to Rūzbihān”,
The Heritage of Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (Oxford: One World, 1999), I, 435.
90
psychiatrists, men of letters, and other parties of the inquiry have contributed
to the massive literature on love; however none of them managed to arrive at
a definition which entirely encompasses the concept while leaving nothing
outside. Rūmī confesses his own helplessness in this field in the following
verses:
To capture love whatever words I say
Make me ashamed when love arrives my way,
While explanation sometimes makes things clear
True love through silence only one can hear:
e pen would smoothly write the things it knew
But when it came to love it split in two,
A donkey stuck in mud is logic’s fate
Love’s nature only love can demonstrate.80
‫ﻮ ﻢ ﻖ را ح و ﯿﺎن‬
‫ﻖ آ ﻢ ﻞ دم از آن‬
‫ﺮ زﺑﺎن رو ﻨ ا ﺖ‬
‫ﻮن‬
‫ﯿﮏ ﻖ ﯽ زﺑﺎن رو ﺮ ا ﺖ‬
‫ﻮن ﻗ ﻢ ا ﺪر ﻮ ﻦ ﯽ ﺘﺎ‬
‫ ﻗ ﻢ ﻮد ﺷ ﮑﺎ‬، ‫ﻖ آ‬
‫ِﻞ ﺖ‬
‫ﺶﻮ‬
‫ﻮن‬
‫ﻞ‬
‫ح ﻖ و ﻋﺎ ﯽ ﻢ ﻖ ﺖ‬
81
80 Rūmī, The Masnavi: Book One, 11 (couplets 112-115).
81 Rūmī, Mathnawi Ma’nawī, 42.
91
In order to partially unveil the hidden entity of love, one should re-read
Werther with this specific question in mind. To start with, it is worth noting that Werther does not display a down-to-earth and stable inter-human
attraction to Lotte in his letters, but rather an unconditional and absolute
“submission” (W, 249). It becomes obvious that Werther’s love is not a profane
one, in spite of earlier readings of the novel. Concordantly, in numerous
passages of his work Goethe employs a thoroughly religious vocabulary that
inspired many of his critics to interpret Werther from such a perspective.82
So why does Werther not explicitly verbalize his submission to God in
his letters, instead of constantly glorifying Lotte, an ordinary human being?
e question is in fact a tautology, since even if Werther does not seem to be
aware of this fact, his love is shaped in such a way that it is directly aimed at
the Complete, Perfect, Infinite and Absolute Attributes of God.83 One can
infer this from Werther’s various descriptions of Lotte throughout the text
(W, 29-30, 43, 61, 62-63, 69, 103). Listening to Werther, it becomes obvious
that Lotte is not merely a human being for him. She means for Werther Eden
and Inferno together. In addition, Schöffler indicates Goethe’s usage of the
biblical symbol Kelch (chalice) in a profane manner84; he indicates that the
Divine Subject in the corresponding verse (John 18:11) has been replaced by
Lotte in Werther’s text. Apart from the reference to the real Charlotte Buff,
the name “Lotte” could have been adopted by Goethe as a cryptic linguistic
innuendo to the German words Liebe (love) and Gott (God). 85 Working
from this idea, it is possible to say that the key to understanding Werther is
hidden in the name “Lotte”.
Nonetheless, transient (fānī) people, considered apart from the Divine
Essence that is inherent in them, are imperfect; this is supremely true because
they are transient. erefore, in the end, the descriptions of Lotte (or Layla,
Beatrice or Laura) transcend the ordinariness of transient beings.86 is point,
82 See Jean-Jacques Anstett, “Werthers religiöse Krise”, Goethes “Werther”: Kritik und Forschung, ed. H. P. Herrmann (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1949), 163-73;
Johanna Graefe, “Die Religion in den ‘Leiden des jungen Werther’: Eine Untersuchung
auf Grund des Wortbestandes”, Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft, 20 (1958): 72-98; Zabel,
“Goethe’s “Werther” – eine weltliche Passionsgeschichte?“, 57-69; Dye, “Man and God in
Goethe’s ‘Werther’”, 314-29; Duncan, Goethe’s Werther and the Critics, 29-39.
83 For an explanation of these Divine Attributes, see” Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “God”, Islamic
Spirituality: Foundations (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 564.
84 Schöffler, Deutscher Geist im 18. Jahrhundert, 165-66, 176.
85 See the last two verses of Goethe’s poem quoted in the conclusion. Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, Werke Kommentare und Register. Hamburger Ausgabe in 14 Bänden. 17th ed.
(München: Beck, 2005), II, 122.
86 Mahmud Erol Kılıç, Sûfî ve Şiir: Osmanlı Tasavvuf Şiirinin Poetikası (Istanbul: İnsan,
2009), 56-57.
92
confusing at first, is clarified by the gied Turkish poet Sezai Karakoç in
his “Sürgün Ülkeden Başkentler Başkentine” (From the Exile Country to the
Capital of Capitals):
[…] You are whom I recall in my poems
Whenever I say Suna or Leyla, it is You
To secrete You, I utilized images
of Salome and Bilkis
All was in vain since You are so obvious and clear […]
(My own translation)
[…] Bütün şiirlerde söylediğim sensin
Suna dedimse sen Leyla dedimse sensin
Seni saklamak için görüntülerinden faydalandım Salome’nin Belkıs’ın
Boşunaydı saklamaya çalışmam öylesine aşikarsın bellisin […]
(Karakoç, “Sürgün Ülkeden Başkentler Başkentine IV”)87
If we might permit a brief digression at this point and draw a Sufi parallel
to Werther, we can affirm that love is less a profane phenomenon than a
Divine one, inasmuch as it transcends the orbits of the mundane and exalts
the human soul into an extraordinary and metaphysical apex.88 According to Sufis, love that is carried to its ultimate consequences is nothing but
existential submission89, the manifestations of which can also be traced in
Werther.90 Love is the essence of worship, since the latter connotes that one
87 Sezai Karakoç, Şiirler – V: Zamana Adanmış Sözler (Istanbul: Diriliş: 2001).
88 Nasr, The Garden of Truth, 25.
89 Kenan Gürsoy, Etik ve Tasavvuf: Felsefî Diyaloglar (Istanbul: Sufi, 2008), 73-74.
90 “A warmhearted youth becomes strongly attached to a maiden: he spends every hour of
the day in her company, wears out his health, and lavishes his fortune, to afford continual
proof that he is wholly devoted to her.” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 12, May
26 — “Ein junges Herz hängt ganz an einem Mädchen, bringt alle Stunden seines Tages
bei ihr zu, verschwendet alle seine Kräfte, all sein Vermögen, um ihr jeden Augenblick
auszudrücken, dass er sich ganz ihr hingibt.” (W, 21-22, am 26. Mai.)
93
recognizes their own passivity and nothingness in the presence of a higher
entity, discerns in one’s heart an unlearned, a priori (fišrī) urge to submission
and converting this spiritual ripening into praxis and creed.91 erefore,
mystics regarded love as the most immediate and bona fide path to submission.92 In virtually all religious traditions, one stumbles on a certain mystical
dimension in which there is a connection between the lover (‘āshiq) and
Beloved (ma‘shūq), i.e., between the created and the Creator.93 is analytical
knowledge about love is also symbolized by Abraham’s search for God in
the Qur’an. In the related verse (Qur’an 6/76), which also caught Goethe’s
attention,94 Abraham uses the expression lā uhibbu (I do not love) and not
lā a‘bidu (I do not worship) in order to express his disappointment caused
by the confutation of his previous conviction of the sun’s divinity, which
becomes obvious when it sets. Although the context in the passage refers
to Abraham’s search for the true Divine Essence to worship, the sentimental
term “love” is used instead of a religiously more technical term, proving that
love and worship may signify the same interrelation in the language of the
Qur’an.95
Seen from an initial level of existence, there are two fundamental categories
of love in Sufism; these are the metaphoric love (‘ishq al-majāzī) and true love
(‘ishq al-ģaqīqī). e former has been associated with non-Divine subjects,
whereas the latter distinguishes love between God and human beings. Be that
as it may, when one looks from a higher existential level, this differentiating
model begins to disintegrate. According to the Judeo-Christian (cf. Genesis
1:26, 5:1 and 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7 and Jacob 3:9) and perennialist accounts96
of human genesis, and Goethe’s own credo,97 humans were created as imago
dei, in one sense metaphors of God. e Islamic account (Qur’an 15/28-29
and 38/71-72) slightly differs, inasmuch as it more strictly disqualifies the
negligence of God’s transcendence as a cardinal sin of polytheism.98 e
91 Cf. Süleyman Uludağ, “İbadet”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA), XIX, 247-48.
92 Emin Işık, Aşkı Meşk Etmek (Istanbul: Sufi, 2010), 140.
93 Cf. Louis Dupré, “Mysticism [First Edition]: Mysticism of Love”, Encyclopedia of Religion,
2nd ed., IX, 6348-352.
94 Goethe intended to start his Mahomet-Drama with these Qur’anic verses, which he
himself had translated from Latin into German; with them he focused on the idea of
Divine Eternity. See Badri, “Zum Bild des Propheten Mohammed,” 65-90.
95 See also Qur’an 2/165.
96 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 144-68.
97 “[…] Almighty, who formed us in his own image […]” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young
Werther, 5, May 10 — “[…] des Allmächtigen, der uns nach seinem Bilde Schuf […]”
(W, 9, am 10. Mai.)
98 Nasr, The Garden of Truth, 12-13.
94
Creator cannot be equalized to the created, yet the Qur’an also states that
Allah has breathed from His Spirit (Rūģ) into the human being He created
(Qur’an 32/9).99 erefore, there resides a Divine Breath in each human being, as formulated in Yūnus Emre’s laconic dictum100 and/or in Hölderlin’s
revelatory couplet in “Die Liebenden”.101 Relying on these metaphysical
connections, one can affirm that the inter-human love is a metaphoric love,
which indicates Divine Love.102
Furthermore, as one dives into deeper waters of ontology and recalls the
Absolute and All-embracing Attributes of God, there are some problems in
setting a clear border between God and human beings. e simple but obvious fact that in everyday life, for the most part, people lack the insight about
what they ultimately love in each other corroborates this predicament. Sufis
have come up with a key that precedes and reminds one of the Hegelian
abstractions of Geist and love.103 God is loved in the inter-human love by
man in man.104 Accordingly, Sufis discern that people love the Divine Essence in each other; this is epitomized in the love between Rūmī and Shams
al-Dīn Tabrīzī. When Rūmī calls Shams khodāye man, the literal reading of
which infuriated orthodox circles in Islam,105 he is clearly referring to this
given.106 Manŝūr al-Ģallāj’s well-known outcry is not that different,107 as
99 Therefore, one observes a linguistic affinity between the Qur’anic concepts of “soul”
(nafs) and “breath” (nafas). The same affinity is also to be found in the Latin word
spiritus and the Greek φυχή (psukh ).
100 “Bir ben vardır bende benden içeru.” Mustafa Tatcı, Yunus Emre Divanı (Istanbul: Milli
Eğitim Bakanlığı, 2005), 279.
101 “Ach wir kennen uns wenig / Denn es waltet ein Gott in uns.” Friedrich Hölderlin,
Sämtliche Werke. KSA. Gedichte bis 1800, ed. Friedrich Beissner (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1944),
251.
102 Süleyman Derin, “Mevlâna Celâleddin Rumi’nin Sevgi Anlayışı”, Doğu Batı, 7/26 (2004):
288.
103 “In der Liebe nämlich sind nach selten des Inhalts die Momente vorhanden, welche
wir als Grundbegriff des absoluten Geistes angaben: die versöhnte Rückkehr aus seinem Anderen zu sich selbst. Dies Andere kann als Andere, in welchem der Geist bei
sich selber bleibt, nur selbst wieder Geistiges, eine geistige Persönlichkeit sein.” Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, ed. Heinrich Gustav Hotho
(Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1843), II, 149.
104 Ritter, “Philologika VII,” 89-90.
105 Cf. Ignác Goldziher, “Die Gottesliebe in der islamischen Theologie“, Der Islam, 9 (1919):
144-58; and for a general explanation of the underlying Sufi concept “shašģ”, see Carl W.
Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (New York: SUNY Press, 1985), 25-26 and Schimmel,
Sufismus, 29-30.
106 Şefik Can, Mevlânâ ile Bir Ömür (Istanbul: Sufi, 2008), 111-13; Emin Işık, Belh’in Güvercinleri: Mevlâna Celâleddin Rûmî (Istanbul: Ötüken, 2008), 70.
107 Cf. Massignon, La passion d’al-Hosayn-Ibn-Mansour Al-Hallaj, II, 525-30.
95
Sufis identify the lover, the Beloved and love itself with God.108 According
to this reading, profane love is a temporary delusion, bere of any ontic basis.
Rūmī reminds us that love is explicitly Divine Love; it is submission, and the
ontological actions of humans, including submission, are categorically not
directed to peripheral glimmers of Divine Light:
Escape from here! Love of forms in this place
Is not for forms themselves like a girl’s face;
In truth, love’s not inspired by forms you see,
ough it seems like it superficially—
Why else would you abandon forms you love
e moment that their souls ascend above?
eir forms persist, so why must your love end?
Find out who your beloved is, my friend!
[…] A ray of sunlight shines across a wall,
It’s just a temporary loan, that’s all—
Why give your heart to a mere wall of clay?
Seek the light’s source which shines each single day!109
‫ ﻖ ی ﻮر ﯽ‬،‫ا ﻦ ر ﻦ‬
‫روی ﯽ‬
‫ﻮرت‬
‫ﺖ‬
‫ ﻮرت ﺖ آن‬،‫آ ﻪ ﻮق ا ﺖ‬
‫ ﻮاه آن ﮫﺎن‬،‫ﻮاه ﻖ ا ﻦ ﮫﺎن‬
‫ﻮرت ﻮ ﻋﺎ ﻖ ﻪ ای‬
‫آ ﻪ‬
108 Schimmel clarifies this metaphysical ambiguity in her assiduous essay on the history
of mystical love in Islam. Schimmel, “Zur Geschichte der mystischen Liebe im Islam,”
496-99. Goethe’s position, which is formulated as “Gefühl ist alles!” in Faust, approaches
this Sufi attachment. Moreover, a 19th century Ottoman-Turkish poet of the Mawlawī
path, Yenişehirli Avni, summarizes this vein in Sufi thought in two couplets: “Kendi
hüsnün hûblar şeklinde peydâ eyledin / Çeşm-i âşıkdan dönüp sonra temâşâ eyledin”
and “Çünki sen âyine-i kevne tecellâ eyledin / Öz cemâlin çeşm-i âşıktan temâşâ eyledi”.
Halil Erdoğan Cengiz, Divan Şiiri Antolojisi (Istanbul: Bilgi, 1983).
109 Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, The Masnavi: Book Two, trans. and ed. J. Mojaddedi
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 43 (couplets 702-705, 708-709).
96
‫ ا ﺶ ﻪ ای؟‬،‫ﻮن ون ﺪ ﺟﺎن‬
‫ ا ﻦ ﺮی ز ﺖ؟‬،‫ﻮر ﺶ ﺟﺎ ﺖ‬
‫ﻮق ﻮ ﺖ؟‬
‫ﻋﺎ ﻘﺎ! وا ﻮ‬
‫]…[ ﻮ ﻮر ﺪ د ﻮار‬
‫ﺶ ﻋﺎر ﯽ د ﻮار ﯾﺎ‬
‫ﺪی ای ﺳ ﻢ؟‬
‫ﺪ او ﻢ‬
110
‫ﮐ ﻮ ﯽ دل‬
‫اﺻ ﯽ‬
‫واﻃ‬
Wandering back in the history of ideas, we find three essential personalities known to have influenced Goethe’s Weltanschauung.111 Firstly,
analogous thoughts subsist in Hegel’s definition of love as “the human
identification of man with God” and “a pure forgetfulness and a complete
self-surrender”.112 Another prominent metaphysician, Spinoza, aer a
deductive reasoning of twelve steps in his Tractatus de Deo et homine, ends
up at the conclusive formula that “love must rest solely in God”.113 Further,
Plato’s Symposion (201d-212c) substantiates the statements of Rūmī and
Hegel. In it, the wise figure Diotima of Mantinea, employs elements of
Greek mythology and sheds light on the successive levels of love, which
end with the love of the essence of beauty. To summarize these levels: one
is first attracted to someone through the exterior beauty, as we have also
witnessed in Werther’s love to Lotte; having seen numerous exterior beauties (of various people), love climbs to the domain of ideas and eventually
ascends to the essence of perfect beauty, or the Divine Beauty (jamāl), in
Sufi terminology.114
110
111
112
113
Rūmī, Mathnawi Ma’nawī, 181.
Cf. Steiner, Goethes Weltanschauung.
Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, II, 152-53.
Baruch Spinoza, Opera: Tractatum hucusque ineditum de Deo et homine (Amsterdam,
1862), 122.
114 Diotima’s gradual instructions have an astonishing resemblance to the stages of love
illuminated in the Sufi literature.
97
Nevertheless, profane love cannot be stigmatized as a “fallacy”. Even if
the lovers are not completely aware of the fact that they are being pulled to
unification with the Absolute by their entire existence, love will help them to
spiritually maturate, outgrow “the human misery”115 and break out from the
“prison of ego”116 with its transforming desire.117 If nothing else, it will bring
a new spiritual consciousness about the banality and futility of the material
world,118 as it did for Werther (W, 70, am 18. Julius). Hence, secular forms of
love may ultimately lead to Divine Love, the motif of which can also be found
in the legendary love of Laylā and Majnūn. Furthermore, the inter-human
love in Sufi thought cannot be separated from God, who created it with His
Infinite Grace (Qur’an 30/21).119
In light of what has been said above, we can infer that the addressee
of l’amour à la Werther is in fact God. However, Werther himself seems to
ignore this fact. is is a further central source of his sufferings; if one does
not recognize the profane love as an interim stage towards the true love, but
rather sees it as the ultimate goal per se, one inescapably becomes imprisoned
in a Socratic aporia. Accordingly, profane love cannot vouchsafe eudaimonίa
(human flourishing), owing to the fact that one grows dejected if one cannot
entertain the Beloved’s love, and thus fails to appease the impulse to unite
with the Beloved. On the other hand, an ephemeral and imperfect fellow
creature cannot placate the hunger of absolute love. is cul-de-sac invariably leads to disappointment and suffering120, even in cases when the lover
reaches the Beloved. Sufis construe this as a self-explanatory consequence of
the Divine Attribute al-Ğayūr.
115 Nurettin Topçu, İslâm ve İnsan, Mevlâna ve Tasavvuf, ed. Ezel Erverdi and İsmail Kara
(Istanbul: Dergâh, 2005), 32-35.
116 This, according to Shari’ati, is the fourth and most insidious prison of human beings.
One can escape from it only with the assistance of īthār (altruism) substantiated by
love. See Ali Shari’ati, Insān wa Islām (Tehran: Intishār, 1963).
117 İsmail Yakıt, Mevlâna’da Aşk Felsefesi (Istanbul: Ötüken, 2010), 107-14.
118 Emphasizing the adjacency of love (mahabbah) and gnosis (ma‘rifah), it is anonymously
narrated within the Sufi tradition that a murshid examined willing murāds with a single
question: “Have you ever been in love my son?” The ones who answered “no” were
declined until they personally experienced love and returned. One of them is reported
to have responded: “I have never been in love with someone, but I am a simple farmer
and deeply love my cattle.” This jejune but genuine answer granted him the admission
into the fraternity.
119 Şefik Can, Mevlânâ ve Eflâtun (Istanbul: Kurtuba, 2009), 206-7.
120 Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalāloddin Rumi
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 333.
98
The Ultimatum of Love: Annihilation
“Ich will sterben! — Es ist nicht Verzweiflung, es ist Gewißheit, daß ich ausgetragen habe, und daß ich mich opfere für dich.” 121
(W, 211, am 20. December)
In its terminal phase love, with its uncompromising anima, commands
the lovers to wholly submit themselves to the Beloved; this results in the
formers’ symbolic death/annihilation since submission involves renunciation
of the self in order to embrace the Self.122 Lovers find life in death as the
outcome of their blessed yearning (selige Sehnsucht), a painful process of
Entwerden.123 is selflessness mostly emerges through the discovery of the
Beloved’s beauty and charm, which is followed by the state of intoxication
and spiritual bliss, both of which are intensively relished by Werther. Since
happiness is an instinctive and unselfconscious124 goal for the human soul,
humans can even sacrifice their worldly existence under the euphoric psyche
of love. Can we throw light on the Wertherian suicidal trend with the help
of this self-contradictory nature of love? e answer is in the affirmative;
Werther and his followers did terminate their lives in the paradoxical dualism
of the bliss and agony of the annihilation in love. is enigma can further be
121 “To die! It is not despair: it is conviction that I have filled up the measure of my sufferings, that I have reached my appointed term, and must sacrifice myself for thee.”
Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 112-13, December 20.
122 Nasr, The Garden of Truth, 128.
123 Schimmel, Sufismus, 34.
124 The bliss emanating from submission never incorporates a modern rational choice
of an egocentric nature: “My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated: she can do
with me what she pleases.” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 91, November 8 —
“Bester ich bin dahin! sie kann mit mir machen, was sie will“ (W, 171, am 8. November). Love is rather a superrational phenomenon in which one loses himself and the
world around himself. Fużūlī’s following couplet is a paragon for this spiritual state
aroused by love’s drunkenness: “Öyle sermestem ki idrâk etmezem dünyâ nedir / Ben
kimem sâki olan kimdir mey-i sahbâ nedir.” Fuzûli, Leylâ vü Mecnûn, ed. Hüseyin Ayan
(Istanbul: Dergâh, 2005), 379/2605. Werther describes the same state in the following
confession that mirrors his inner world: “She consented, and I went, and, since that
time, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course: I know not whether it is day or
night; the whole world is nothing to me.” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 26,
June 19 — “[S]eit der Zeit können Sonne, Mond und Sterne geruhig ihre Wirtschaft
treiben, ich weiß weder daß Tag noch daß Nacht ist, und die ganze Welt verliert sich
um mich her“ (W, 47, am 19. Juni). Particularly Rūmī’s effusive poems in the Dīwān-i
Kabīr give place to this indescribable exuberance and joy, making Karakoç regard it as
Rūmī’s “subjectivity”, while the Mathnawi his “objectivity”. See Sezai Karakoç, Mevlâna
(Istanbul: Diriliş, 2006), 71.
99
deciphered with Ibn ‘Arabī’s analogous thought on the aerlife in which he
traces the word ‘ažāb (torment) to its root ‘užb (sweetness).125
Lovers become enamored in the beloved and the pores of their Dasein are
filled by the light of the latter.126 Within this relationship, the beloved grows
with the love of the lovers in an existential modus; this is described in Sufi
literature through the analogy of the ivy plant, the etymological root of the
Arabic word for love (‘ishq). is is an essential reason why Lotte does not
reject Werther’s love at first, although she is aware of and welcomes the fact
that she is “das Eigenthum eines anderen [the property of someone else]” (W,
207, am 20. December). us, she accepts and feeds his love in a subtle way,
until the affair becomes unsustainable.127
at love simultaneously may bring forth the happiest and the saddest is
a cosmic ironia fati, one which is also faced by Werther.128 As forewarned
by Goethe in his “Lesebuch”, the pages of agony in the book of love are far
more numerous and spacious than those of happiness. Sufis explained this
mystery in love’s nature by contending that God tests His servants when they
are close. Schimmel declares that those who are the closest to God in their
love, such as prophets and friends of God (awliyā’), are also the most afflicted
ones.129 In addition, comparing ideas of Sufis and Meister Eckhart, Schimmel maintains that affliction (balā’) is the most effective means of maturing
the human soul.130 erefore, Werther’s dilemmatic and desperate utterance
above rejoins its metaphysical basis.
125 Ibn ‘Arabī, Fuŝūŝ al-ģikam, ed. A. ‘Afīfī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1946), 94.
126 “I cannot pray except to her. My imagination sees nothing but her: all surrounding
objects are of no account, except as they relate to her.” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young
Werther, 56, August 30 — “Ich habe kein Gebet mehr als an sie; meiner Einbildungskraft
erscheint keine andere Gestalt als die ihrige, und alles in der Welt um mich her sehe
ich nur im Verhältnisse mit ihr” (W, 103, am 30. Aug.).
127 In fact, in a solitary moment, “[a]mid all these considerations she felt deeply but
indistinctly that her own real but unexpressed wish was to retain him for herself
[…]”. Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 115, December 20 — “Ueber allen tiefen
Betrachtungen fühlte sie erst tief, ohne sich es deutlich zu machen, daβ ihr herzliches
heimliches Verlangen sey, ihn für sich zu behalten […]” (W, 215, am 20. Dezember).
128 “Must it ever be thus, — that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain
of our misery?” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 52, August 18 — “Mußte denn
das so sein, daß das, was des Menschen Glückseligkeit macht, wieder die Quelle seines
Elendes würde?“ (W, 93, am 18. Aug.).
129 Fużūlī stresses this catastrophic nature of love with the following verses in his Leylâ vü
Mecnûn: “Cân verme gamı ‘aşka ki ‘aşk âfet-i cândır / ‘Aşk âfet-i cân olduğu meşhûr-ı
cihândır.” Fuzûli, Leylâ vü Mecnûn, 150/935.
130 Schimmel, Mystical dimensions of Islam, 136-37; Annemarie Schimmel, Rumi: Ich bin
Wind und du bist Feuer (Köln: Diederichs, 1986), 140-41.
100
We have tried to demonstrate above that the entire process of love is
concerned with the unification of the lover and the Beloved. Most love stories
end with death; this process of unification must end with the symbolic death
of the lover’s self131, or in some cases, like Werther’s, even in physical death.132
ere can be no unification in which both subjects are disposed to be alive;
the absolutist essence of love leaves no room for two separate egos. According
to Nasr, the unification of humans with God is only possible if they erase
their ego with the help of God.133 To support this standpoint, Nasr quotes
two couplets from Ģallāj and Hāfez:
Between I and ou,
my I-ness is the source of torment
rough y I-ness
Li my I-ness from between us.
‫ر ﻊ ﺑ ﻔﮏ ا ﯽ ﻦ ا ﻦ‬
‫ﯽ و ﻨﮏ ا ﯽ ﻨﺎز ﯽ‬
ere is no veil between the lover and the Beloved
ou art thine own veil o Hafiz remove thyself!
‫ﺣﺎ ﻞ ﺖ‬
‫ﯿﺎن ﻋﺎ ﻖ و ﻮق‬
‫ﻮ ﻮد ﺠﺎب ﻮدی ﺣﺎ ﻆ از ﯿﺎن ﺰ‬
131 Emine Yeniterzi, Mevlânâ Celâleddin Rûmî (Ankara: TDV, 2001), 87-92.
132 “She does not feel, she does not know that she is preparing a poison which will destroy
us both ; and I drink deeply of the draught which is to prove my destruction.“ Goethe,
The Sorrows of Young Werther, 56, November 21 — “Sie sieht nicht, sie fühlt nicht, dass
sie ein Gift bereitet, das mich und sie zugrunde richten wird; und ich mit voller Wollust
schlürfe den Becher aus, den sie mir zu meinem Verderben reicht.” (W, 173, am 21. Nov.)
133 Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred, 279.
101
e lovers gradually diminish in the Beloved through the process of annihilation. us, their desires, hopes, whims, eccentricities, egoisms, interests,
habitudes and addictions as well as valued things and people, shortly everything related to their person, will be adjusted according to the acceptance of
their Beloved; this is without any expectation of reward.134 ey deliberately
abandon their existence in order to “be one” with their Beloved, as explained
in the analogy of a raindrop that forsakes its idiosyncrasies and throws itself
into the infinity of the ocean.135 Paradoxically lovers find existence in grasping their nothingness.136 Although humans cannot be free of their desires or
the ambitions of their nafs until their last breath, it is possible to reach certain
spiritual stations (maqāmāt) with perseverance;137 this has been adjured by
the Prophetic Wisdom: “Die before you die!”
When all is said and done, love of an evanescent being leads to disappointment and desperation, whereas love for God leads to selflessness in God,
as indicated in the Sufi literature by the station of fanāfillāh. It is, however,
not the final station for the Divine Love, supposing that it is followed by
baqābillāh, i.e., subsistence in God,138 which constitutes the ultimate intention of the human raison d’être. is brings us back to Wiederfinden of Goethe,
who poetized it in the human spiritual state before the immortal approached
the forbidden tree. Hence, al-insān al-kāmil (the universal man) in Sufism is
the one who, by the Grace of God, completes the circular pursuit of existence
with the homecoming to the day of alastu;139 this is when souls cry out
“balā!”. at is, this is briefly the pre-creation,140 or as denoted by al-Attas, the
foremost ideal of dīn.141 Being heralded by the Divine Contentment (ridhā)
(Qur’an 89/27-30), the universal man embodies the apotheosis of the fleshly.
Seen from this Sufi viewpoint, Werther neglected the fact that only the Divine
Love endows the actual Zuhause to the human soul; failing to do this, he
encapsulated his Gemüt into the unreliable and ungrateful cage of the passing
(cf. Qur’an 9/109).
134
135
136
137
138
139
Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2002), 76.
Tuğrul İnançer and Kenan Gürsoy, Gönül Gözü (Istanbul: Sufi, 2008), 29.
Mahmud Erol Kılıç, Evvele Yolculuk (Istanbul: Sufi, 2008), 13-14.
Nasr, The Garden of Truth, 89.
Nasr, The Garden of Truth, 135.
Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 44; Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1995), 192-93.
140 Schimmel, Sufismus, 31.
141 Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islām and Secularism (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1993),
58, 61-62, 68.
102
Conclusion
An image may I not devise,
If such my pleasure be?
God gives an image of our life
In every midge we see.
An image may I not devise,
If such my pleasure be?
For imaged in my true love’s eyes
God gives Himself to me.
(Goethe,“Universal Life”)142
Sollt‘ ich nicht ein Gleichnis brauchen
Wie es mir beliebt?
Da uns Gott des Lebens Gleichnis
In der Mücke gibt.
Sollt‘ ich nicht ein Gleichnis brauchen
Wie es mir beliebt?
Da mir Gott in Liebchens Augen
Sich im Gleichnis gibt.
(Goethe, “Alleben”)143
Although it is not possible to eliminate the prevailing psycho-pathologic
and socio-economic variations of explanations, their simplistic character
seems to be unpersuasive, hence insufficient to explain the true reasons of
Werther’s sufferings. In addition, such explanations remain unable to give a
sound explanation for the pervasive Wertherian suicidal trend. What is represented in Werther is a more profound phenomenon that is concerned with
the metaphysics of love, as this paper has attempted to elucidate. Predictably,
it is the abysmal nature of these deep-rooted rudiments which intimidated
contemporaneous figures of Aulärung, such as Lessing, Mendelssohn, Lichtenberg and Nicolai.144
142 Goethe, West-Eastern Divan, 18.
144 Goethe’s rage at their simplistic and occasionally derisive approach is expressed in his
venomous poetic answer (“Nicolai auf Werthers Grabe”) to Nicolai. See Appell, Werther
und seine Zeit, 181-85.
103
In conclusion, according to the paradigmata of taŝawwuf and metaphysica,
Werther suffers merely because he is in love and yearns for unification with
his Beloved. He copes with the ontological agony of separation from God.
In order to solve the complexities of this puzzle, one also needs to cast a
glance into the very nature of love. Love is the lovers’ submission to their
Beloved. As a result, submission requires annihilation so that the lover and
the Beloved can be one. Hence, agony is intrinsic to love. Having said this,
love has a contradictory nature and may simultaneously prepare eternal bliss
and unbearable sufferings. Werther savours the ecstasy and euphoria of love
until his hopes of unification with his beloved become extinct. Subsequently,
he crashes into sheer desperation and his Dasein, which is embraced by his
beloved; this is represented in Sufi literature with the analogy of a miserable
plant entwined and squeezed by an ivy, thus ruthlessly losing its meaning
and ground. Still, again seen from a Sufi perspective, Werther commits the
sin (cf. Qur’an 2/165) to devote his love to a transient existence, thus to give
a meaning to his own existence through Lotte. By wholeheartedly devoting
his unreserved and unconditional love to Lotte, under the influence of love’s
ecstasy, Werther takes a risk, the consequences of which he does not foresee.
While it is true that Werther’s sufferings cannot be explained only by
the steepness of the Sufi path, he faces a more overwhelming challenge. e
chapter of the Sufi annihilation might have a happy ending (baqābillāh);
Werther’s annihilation, however, does not. Although wanting to welcome
death from Lotte’s hands (W, 244), Werther is rejected by his beloved145 and
flung irreversibly into the bottomless obscurity of meaninglessness146 by her
145 Even seen from the Freudian secularized perspective, i.e., as detached from the
metaphysical nature of love, which is essentially criticized within this essay, the
loss of the beloved or its love makes one most unprotected to agony. See Sigmund
Freud, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer
Verlag, 1930), 11.
146 Werther earlier was aware of the terrifying abyss between being and nothingness: “Why
should I be ashamed of shrinking at that fearful moment, when my whole being will
tremble between existence and annihilation” Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 92,
November 15 — “Und warum sollte ich mich schämen, in dem schrecklichen Augenblick,
da mein ganzes Wesen zwischen Seyn und Nichtseyn zittert” (W, 172, am 15. November).
In addition, Goethe suggests the innermost spirit of Werther in an earlier dialogue
between Werther and Albert: “She floats in a dim, delusive anticipation of her happiness;
and her feelings become excited to their utmost tension. She stretches out her arms
finally to embrace the object of all her wishes — and her lover forsakes her. Stunned
and bewildered, she stands upon a precipice. All is darkness around her. No prospect,
no hope, no consolation—forsaken by him in whom her existence was ud! She sees
nothing of the wide world before her, thinks nothing of the many individuals who
might supply the void in her heart; she feels herself deserted, forsaken by the world ;
and, blinded and impelled by the agony which wrings her soul, she plunges into the
104
hands, despite having completely submitted his existence to her.147 Werther’s
tragedy once again manifests that lovers are ready to sacrifice their existence
for their Beloved, yet they cannot survive desertion, which denotes for them
a terra incognita even beyond nothingness.148
Finally, it is possible to add that Werther would change his yellow vest
for the woolen coat of the dervishes; that is to say, he would search further if
he reached Lotte, as suggested, for instance, in Nicolai’s parodic Die Freuden
des jungen Werther. e resulting aporetic disappointment would motivate
him to do so; he might have realized en route that his true Beloved and
ultimate intention cannot be a human being, but in the end only God. e
recurrent theme of “Einschränkung” in Werther can also be read from this
point of view. However, even if those who devote their love to God also
suffer due to the afflicting nature of love, Divine Love is not destructive in
the end, but constructive and constitutive; lovers perceive God as Almighty
and Compassionate. Apparently, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the author of
“selige Sehnsucht” and the following verses in the renewed introduction of the
1825 edition of Werther, chose this path in his life.
Zum Bleiben ich, zum Scheiden du erkohren,
Gingst du voran und hast nicht viel verlohren.
deep, to end her sufferings in the broad embrace of death.” Goethe, The Sorrows of
Young Werther, 50, August 12 — “[s]ie schwebt in einem dumpfen Bewußtseyn, in einem
Vorgefühl aller Freuden, sie ist bis auf den höchsten Grad gespannt, wo sie endlich ihre
Arme ausstrekt, all ihre Wünsche zu umfassen – und ihr Geliebter verläßt Sie. – Erstarrt;
ohne Sinne steht sie vor einem Abgrunde, und alles ist Finsterniß um sie her, keine
Aussicht, kein Trost, keine Ahndung, denn der hat sie verlassen, in dem sie allein ihr
Daseyn fühlte. Sie sieht nicht die weite Welt, die vor ihr liegt, nicht die Vielen, die ihr
den Verlust ersezzen könnten, sie fühlt sich allein, verlassen von aller Welt, – und blind,
in die Enge gepreßt von der entsezlichen Noth ihres Herzens stürzt sie sich hinunter,
um in einem rings umfangenden Tode all ihre Quaalen zu erstikken.“ (W, 92, am 12.
August).
147 Schöffler, Deutscher Geist im 18. Jahrhundert, 175.
148 In his eulogy to the Prophet of Islam “Naat”, the Turkish poet İsmet Özel utters the
following verses in which he refers to that place “beyond nothingness”: “[…] Gitti giden,
yerine gelmedi başka biri / Orada / Duyumsatmadı kendini hiçlik bile […]” İsmet Özel,
Bir Yusuf Masalı (İstanbul: Şule, 2000).
105
Yolların Birleştiği Yerde Werther: Tasavvuf ’ta ve Metafizik’te Aşk Istırabı
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’nin Die Leiden des jungen Werther (Genç Werther’in
Acıları) isimli eseri yayımlandığı yıl olan 1774’ten bu yana dünya genelinde edebiyat eleştirmenlerinin ve akademi dışındaki hevesli okuyucuların ilgisini cezbetmiştir. Dünya edebiyatının önde gelen metinlerinden biri olan bu mektup-roman,
aşk metafiziği üzerine yapılacak entelektüel teorileştirmeler için oldukça elverişli
bir zemin oluşturmaktadır. Bu makale, romanın aşk kavramını nasıl biçimlendirdiğine dair veya daha açık bir ifadeyle insanlığın iki büyük entelektüel mirası
olan İslâm tasavvufu ve Kıta Avrupa metafiziğinin aydınlattığı, aşkın kavramsal
yapısının, eseri nasıl desteklediğine dair özgün bir medeniyetler ve disiplinlerarası
metin çözümlemesi sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bunun yanında, giriş kısmında
makalenin bakış açısı hakkında genel bir metodolojik açıklama ve Goethe’nin
İslâm’la ilişkisi üzerine muhtasar bir değerlendirme de yer almaktadır.
Anahtar kelimeler: Goethe, Werther, İslâm, tasavvuf, Kıta Avrupa metafiziği, aşk.
106

Goethe`s Werther at the Crossroads: Love`s Agony in

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